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There are 240 volunteers working every day at Ho Chi Minh City's international airport, assisting a large number of passengers who are rushing to go home for the Lunar New Year holiday next week.

Vo Quoc Thang, a senior official at Tan Son Nhat Airport, said that thousands of volunteers will take turn to help, from February 3 to the New Year’s Eve on February 7. They are students of the Vietnam Aviation Academy and some officers of ground service providers.

Their main tasks include assisting elderly people, passengers with disabilities and women with young children.

They will return for one week from February 12, when many people will flock to Tan Son Nhat Airport again to resume work.

“This is the first time I've returned to Vietnam after years in the US, so I brought a lot of luggage and presents for my relatives and friends,” said Vincent Tran, a Vietnamese-American passenger at the airport. “A group of young volunteers offered to help me and my wife with the luggage."

The airport has welcomed an average of 105,000 passengers, including around 10,000 Viet kieu (overseas Vietnamese), every day in recent weeks and the number is rising as the holiday is fast approaching, local media reported.

Over last weekend the airport's international terminal became overburdened, with passengers coming in droves and their friends and relatives flooding the waiting area. Security officers were busy clearing space for arriving passengers to get out.

The airport has recently reached its maximum annual capacity of 25 million passengers, five years earlier than expected.